Hooker Wins Top Honour
World champions Steve Hooker and Dani Samuels have tonight capped their outstanding years in track and field by being named Athletics Australia’s Male and Female Athletes of the Year at the annual awards gala at the Rendezvous Observation City Hotel in Perth.
Just hours after taking out his third senior national pole vault crown Hooker was tonight recognised as the most successful Australian male athlete of the 2009/10 track and field year, highlighted by world championships gold in Berlin (GER) in August and world indoor championships glory in Doha (QAT) last month.
The 27-year-old captain of the Australian Flame was also named the inaugural Flame Athlete of the Year, nominated by members of the Australian Flame and awarded by the Athletes’ Commission, for his outstanding contribution to the senior international team. Other nominees for the award included Jody Henry, Fabrice Lapierre, Sally McLellan and Madeleine Pape.
On a stellar night for the Commonwealth, Olympic, world and world indoor champion, Hooker was also awarded Athletics International’s International Athlete of the Year for 2009/10 for his all-conquering efforts on the world stage.
Fellow world champion Dani Samuels took home both the Female Athlete of the Australian Athletics Season and Female Athlete of the Year prizes following a season that has seen the 21-year-old Sydneysider become the youngest world discus champion in history, record a new personal best mark of 65.84m at the Sydney Track Classic in February and claim her fifth consecutive national discus title this weekend.
One-lap wonder Ben Offereins was named Male Athlete of the Australian Athletics Season, the Western Australian local’s 2009/10 achievements culminating in taking out his second national 400m crown last night after winning his first one-lap title in 2005. Earlier in the season Offereins clocked a new personal best time of 44.86, his first time under the coveted 45-second barrier, to win the Sydney Track Classic and one week later stormed to victory at the IAAF-sanctioned Melbourne Track Classic.
Discus thrower Benn Harradine was named Indigenous Athlete of the Year in recognition of a season that saw him contest the world championships in Berlin, the only Indigenous athlete to compete at a major international meet across the 2009/10 season. Harradine followed up his 2009 campaign with discus gold at this weekend’s national titles.
Rising stars Blake Lucas and Mitch Watt were named Asics Junior Athlete of the Year and Athletics International’s Steve Moneghetti Emerging Athlete of the Year respectively. Lucas ended the year as the No. 1 ranked junior male pole vaulter in the world in 2009 while Watt took long jump bronze at the IAAF world championships in Berlin in August and the IAAF world indoor championships in Doha in March just 18 months after returning to the sport following a five-year absence.
For the second year running world championships representative Jared Tallent was named Out of Stadium Athlete of the Year, in recognition of a stellar season that has included two top-eight finishes at the world championships in Berlin (sixth – 20km walk, seventh – 50km walk) and a new personal best time over 20km in Round 1 of the IAAF Race Walking Challenge and 2010 Australian 20km race walking championships and Commonwealth Games selection trials in Hobart in February.
Pole vault guru Alex Parnov was recognised for his role in helping Steve Hooker to world and world indoor championships gold in taking out Senior Coach of the Year honours. Tasmania’s Evan Peacock won Junior Coach of the Year for his work on the Apple Isle in shaping the next generation of throws athletes, including sons Hamish and Huw Peacock.
Following their outstanding results across 2009/10, Kurt Fearnley and Louise Ellery were named Male and Female Athletes with a Disability of the Year.
In 2009 Fearnley posted six wins from as many starts on the international marathon circuit, recording wins in Paris, London, Seoul, Sydney, Chicago and New York before taking on a gruelling 12-day crawl of the infamous Kokoda Track in Papua New Guinea in November.
Ellery today set a new world record in the women’s secured shot put, her heave of 6.05m earning her the new world mark and 2010 Australian crown and shoring up her status as the world’s dominant force in that event.
In other accolades presented at tonight’s 2009/10 Athlete of the Year gala, John and Nancy Atterton, Bill Bailey, Ian Boswell, Jim Minehane, Norm Osborne OAM, Michael Thomson and Ray Weinberg were granted Life Membership of Athletics Australia for their tireless dedication to the sport.
Former athletics greats Melinda Gainsford-Taylor, Kerry Saxby-Junna, Tim Forsyth, Kerryn McCann (posthumous), Nicole Boegman and Kylie Wheeler were named recipients of the Edwin Flack award for their contribution to track and field over many years of involvement in the sport, both as competing and retired athletes.
Geoffrey Martin OAM was named Volunteer of the Year in recognition of another outstanding 12 months of service as a dedicated official, his time on duty most often spent with a starters’ gun in hand seeing the nation’s top athletes off their marks and away.
Rounding out the night’s proceedings, a list of 42 athletes to have earned automatic nomination to the Australian athletics team for the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, India, in October, was announced to the 400-strong crowd.
A larger team of athletes including selectors’ discretionary nominations will be named at 8:30am tomorrow (AWST).
The 2009/10 Athlete of the Year Awards brought to close a blockbuster three days of track and field action that saw 598 athletes vie for national glory and a place on the Commonwealth Games team bound for New Delhi, India, in October.